CHICAGO — President Joe Biden may not have given the acceptance speech he wanted to make at the Democratic National Convention Monday night, but his address could have served as a bookend of sorts on his own decades-long political career.
Forced out of the 2024 race by mounting intraparty pressure after a calamitous June debate, Biden is now months away from leaving office and entering the political wilderness. He’ll leave behind him a record of public service as senator, vice president and finally the long-coveted job as president. But he’ll also be partly remembered for the events that cut short his reelection plans and slapped him with the one-term label that tainted legacies of a select few past White House denizens.
For at least this week in Chicago, however, Biden was hailed as nothing short of a hero.
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Speaker after speaker thanked him repeatedly during their remarks. Conversations with attendees underscored a reverence for a man who, in their telling, sacrificed personal ambition to better position the party to defeat a threat to democracy itself in the form of former President Donald Trump. And first lady Jill Biden extolled him as a man filled with compassion, for his children and grieving strangers alike, and a love for country that led him to end his presidential bid.
Moments later, after an introduction from his daughter, teary-eyed Biden himself walked on stage to a boisterous crowd holding placards professing their love for the president and chanting their thanks.
“I love you,” he said at the start of his speech. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
“I think history will say that Joe Biden saved America twice. The first time was removing the malignancy that was the Trump presidency and healing the nation after Jan. 6. And then I think he is attempting to save America again by putting his ego aside, stepping back and doing what’s best for the country by allowing Vice President Harris to take on Donald Trump,” said veteran Democratic strategist Peter Giangreco.
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Legacy was clearly on the 46th president’s mind as he addressed the party faithful Monday night, even as he delivered a speech that just a few weeks ago would’ve been intended to bolster his own reelection aspirations rather than those of his No. 2.
Biden boasts a lengthy record — elected to the Senate at just 29 years old, then joining a historic presidential ticket as vice president in 2008, using his eight terms in office to usher through deals with a Congress he’d served in for decades.
And as president, he pushed through historic investments in infrastructure, navigated the national recovery from COVID-19, expanded scientific innovation, bolstered international alliances in the face of a belligerent Russia and China and more — efforts he highlighted Monday.
We’ve had the most extraordinary four years of progress ever,” he said.
He also heaped praise on Vice President Kamala Harris, his hand-picked successor whose victory this November would both usher in another four years of Democratic rule and help Biden’s narrative that he’s passing the baton to a healthy party with a bright future.
“Are you ready to vote for freedom? Are you ready to vote for democracy and freedom? Are you ready to vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz?” he asked the crowd, with each question prompting cheers.
And Biden warned of the dangers his predecessor posed, rallying the party to deny him another term.
“You cannot say you love your country only when you win,” he said, echoing a favorite refrain knocking Trump and the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.
At moments during his speech, Biden was interrupted by an adoring crowd.
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Gone were the lamentations about his age and electability that plagued the party just over a month ago. Instead, on the United Center’s convention floor was a boisterous crowd eager to make Biden aware of their appreciation, chanting, “we love Joe” and “union Joe.”
“The level of enthusiasm and respect and love for him will, I think, just be astronomical, and something that we have not seen at the Democratic Party in decades, pre-Obama, just because of the self-sacrifice,” said one senior Democratic operative. “His legacy will be righting the ship in a time of remarkable turmoil and keeping us from going over the edge of authoritarianism as we were sitting on the cusp of a second untethered Trump term.”
Still, for all the adulation in Chicago, Biden’s legacy is now just being written in pencil.
Party operatives said the results of this year’s presidential race will play a major factor in how Biden is remembered. A Harris win could vindicate his vow to be a transitional party leader and halt Trump’s resurgence on the political scene. But a Harris loss could thrust Biden’s unpopularity back in the spotlight, sparking questions of whether the president cut off Harris’ path to victory before she started her campaign.
“One-term presidents aren’t necessarily seen as great presidents, especially when it’s followed by someone like Donald Trump. So, I think his legacy is somewhat dependent on what happens in a few months. And I do think if Harris wins, it’s an unabashedly positive legacy for him,” said Jim Kessler, a co-founder of the center-left think tank Third Way.
On top of that, there’s no avoiding the ruinous June debate.
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After that head-to-head with Trump, historians and operatives in both parties described Biden’s poor performance in historic terms. And the sheer power of the debate — potent enough to end the reelection campaign of a sitting president with a beefy legislative record — is sure to be mentioned in future textbooks when discussing Biden.
“It’s always better to go out on top than drag it out until what people remember are the games you shouldn’t have pitched but you did,” said longtime Democratic National Committee member James Zogby.
Biden’s defenders say the debate won’t be more than a footnote in the president’s legacy.
After the event, when Biden was insistent on remaining in the race, he and his allies echoed the argument that a decades-long career couldn’t be defined by one night. While that claim wasn’t enough to quiet the drumbeat of calls for Biden to end his campaign, it is enough for his advocates to argue that Biden’s years in public service will overwhelm the impact of the debate in years to come.
“I don’t think the debate will factor in. It will be mentioned in his bio, but his legacy is what he’s accomplished, and his legacy will be stepping aside from the most powerful position in the world, which is hard for anybody to do, and to pass that baton to a new generation,” said former Alabama Sen. Doug Jones, D.
And for one night in Chicago, the debate couldn’t appear further from Democrats’ minds.
“America, America, I gave my best to you,” Biden said near the end of his speech.
After Biden wrapped up, Jill Biden, Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff joined Biden on stage, embracing him.
The baton had been passed. The crowd erupted.
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